NEWFOUNDLAND'S FUTURE. 211 



CONCLUSION. 



And now, about to lay down the pen, as we glance 

 backward by way of farewell to the little book, there 

 crowd upon us pleasant reminiscences of the people 

 among whom we spent those autumn days, so full of 

 pleasure and of incident. We came among them 

 strangers, we left them friends; should we not be 

 tempted back again by the recollection of this visit, 

 at least the friendships formed will not be suffered to 

 lapse, if the islanders reciprocate our feeling toward 

 them, as we have every reason to expect. In this 

 feeling is an element of sympathy which we trust 

 may awaken the same in the heart of the reader. 

 These people of the north have for decades been 

 making a heroic struggle not only against nature's 

 forces, but against the colder arid more cruel hand of 

 oppression, moved by soulless greed; and last and 

 worst, against the corruption among themselves in- 

 duced by the example set them in their treatment by 

 the mother country. But the corruptionists are a 

 small minority ; the honest masses will slough them 

 off, and we feel safe in predicting for them a brighter 

 future. 



What are the grounds of our belief? First, the 

 seemingly inexhaustible bounty of nature in the 

 waters surrounding them, the undeveloped riches of 



